Tonight my friend Will and I went to see our friend Jesse’s band play at the High Dive, a fun little bar in Fremont that always has live bands. Jesse had given me their CDs a couple weeks ago, so I had some time to get familiar with the music. (You can check out their band, Look Closer, on MySpace.) The show was fantastic, and my neighbors showed up to hang out too, so it was just an all-around good night. I swear I never used to go watch local bands when I was living in Los Angeles, but it’s just such a huge part of the culture in Seattle, and I constantly find myself at these very loud shows that I never would have bothered to attend when I was, like, 21 in LA, because how was anyone going to properly hit on me with the music blasting like that?
As we were walking out, Will — who’s just a couple years older than I am — was like, “I don’t mean to sound like a grumpy old man, but don’t you think that if you went to shows like this all the time you’d do permanent damage to your eardrums?” I almost fell over laughing. It was 11 pm and we were both sleepy. I like being a grown-up, though. I’ve embraced it. I don’t like looking older, but I do like being older. Thank God for plastic surgery. I plan to get lots and lots and lots. Anyway. Tonight was a great night — I feel like I was smiling or laughing the whole time. I absolutely adore the people I have in my life today.
I’ve found that after this last bout with craziness, I’m suddenly open to looking at a lot of issues that I was unwilling to look at before. Things that I’d blocked out and been entirely unwilling and unable to face, I’m all of a sudden like, “Let’s talk about this constantly with everyone who will listen. Let’s get it sorted out. Let’s go through it bit by bit, let’s look at all the shit that happened that I was never willing to think about or talk about or treat as the truth; let’s talk about it and face it and let’s try to get past it so I can get out of this holding pattern.”
It’s funny — people are always like, “Isn’t it weird having your whole life out there on the Internet?” It isn’t, really. It isn’t weird because it isn’t my whole life. It’s not even close. I keep a lot about my life private, strangely enough. There’s a lot of shit about my life today that I don’t talk about on the Internet — anyone who’s close to me can vouch for that — and there’s a lot of shit that probably defined me and continues to define me that I don’t talk about with anyone. I refuse to look at my certain aspects of my past as consequential. I just want it all to be gone and done and over. But I’m learning that that’s not the way things work, and that I probably have to sit there and sift through all that shit, to look it in the eye, to actually talk to people about these things and be like, “Yeah, this happened, and I can’t continue to ignore that it happened, and I can’t just mention it offhand and be like ‘OK now I talked about it and I’m done’ and expect it to really be done, so let’s fucking discuss it further.” I have to take the initiative to say to people “I need to talk about this and I need your help sorting through it.” That part has been extremely difficult for me, but, once I started asking, people started lining up to help in the most loving ways. Just really reaching out and coming up with ideas and making time for me. I have so many people who love me so dearly, and who want nothing more than for me to be healthy and happy. I’m not looking forward to this process, and I wish I didn’t have to do it at all, but I’m not especially scared, either; I’m suddenly really really willing to do it, whereas before I absolutely refused. So, ya know, fingers crossed for emotional growth! Hooray!
